Rice that 'snaps, crackles and pops' with protein

Hello! Hi! Hey! Good morning. How ya’ doin’?

That’s how people in the United States often greet each other. In China, however, people often use a different greeting. They say, “Have you had your rice today"” Those words emphasize the importance of rice in everyday life. You and I may eat rice only a couple of times a month. But people in China, Japan, India and other countries eat it several times a day. For more than half the world’s population — for 3.3 billion people (that’s 33 followed by eight zeroes) — rice is the single most important food. Many people depend on rice for most of their nutrition.

For those reasons, chemists and other scientists have been trying to make rice more nutritious. They especially want rice to snap, crackle, and pop — with protein. Scientists in the United States and India have taken a big step toward more nutritious rice.

Hari B. Krishnan led a team of scientists who created a new variety of high-protein rice. They combined two types of rice. One was a rice called Oryza nivara that grows wild. Another was Oryza sativa, which farmers grow for food.

The new rice has more protein “snap, crackle and pop” — almost one-third more protein than other rice. Scientists say it could help improve the nutrition of millions of people around the world who depend on rice as a food.

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The new study is in the Jan. 23, 2008, issue of ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a journal for scientists.

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*The research in this press release is from a copyrighted publication, and stories must credit the journal by name or the American Chemical Society.

News media may obtain a full text of this report (“Interspecific Rice Hybrid of Oryza sativa × Oryza nivara Reveals a Significant Increase in Seed Protein Content”) in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, by contacting Michael Bernstein.